


Perdition

by cherrysprite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Never Met, Alternate Universe - Purgatory, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beta Liam Dunbar, Dead from the beginning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good Theo Raeken, Heaven, Heaven & Hell, Hell Trauma, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Purgatory, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 02:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysprite/pseuds/cherrysprite
Summary: This was the last time he would ever hold the one he had been meant to be with in his arms, the last time he'd hear his voice. If there were more pictures in front of them, Theo would never know. His eyes were shut and he was trying to remember every single thing about Liam he could before he was cast away. "I'm so sorry," He sobbed, forgetting that Adam was there in the first place. He was sorry he never met Liam before, or spent any time with him that wasn't when they were nothing but souls that had left their hosts behind. "I'm-I'm-"-Theo and Liam meet in purgatory, where their sins are weighed against their good to decide their fate.





	Perdition

Theo's hands were folded in his lap, the smell of clean but slightly stale air filling his lungs as he looked around. The blue-grey chair underneath him was comfortable enough and there were many more just like it all around him, but there was no one filling any of them. He can't place what he's listening to; it might be birds, or aircraft, or a radio, but all he knew was that there was a neutral and continuous noise everywhere.

Still, he can't find anything wrong with his surroundings. There were tall windows in the room he's in that lead out to seemingly endless planes of land, but wind doesn't blow through the grass like he would expect, and there's no door. Even with all of this, Theo just sighed and looked down at his hands patiently. He examined the silver ring on his middle finger, still there from where he had last been yesterday...whatever yesterday was.

He'd never been in an airport before, but that's what he associated with wherever he was now. There's an intercom embedded in one of the walls towards the ceiling, and a long stretch of hallway with other rooms, but something tells him that if he tried to go down it, he couldn't. Not that he wanted to, of course. He could stay sitting there and he would feel fine.

The ceiling becomes particularly interesting at some point, but he's still not bored as he counts the tiles and even how many dots on them. There are two hundred seventy-six on one of them when he stops counting, and he looks at the blue carpet instead. Then he looks over at the expanse of chairs. He must be waiting for something. Everyone else must already have been done waiting.

He shuts his eyes for half a second before he hears footsteps coming towards him, slowly but surely, and in another time, his eyelids would have snapped open and he'd be at attention in half a second. This time, however, he's quiet and only opens them when he feels the space next t him be taken up, the air displacing a little.

"Hello," A man says like he's just as calm as Theo about being there. "How are you?"

Theo shrugs, but the conversation seemed to feel natural enough. "I'm...okay." He rubs his thumb over his armrest for a second before deciding to ask, "Who are you?"

"Liam," He answered slowly. "You?"

"Theo."

Theo's eyes roamed over Liam's body, but it was more idly than anything. He was wearing a grey jacket over a black T-shirt that looked like it had blood on it. He couldn't bring himself to be phased by it either, since his own did too. "Do you know what we're waiting for?"

Liam shook his head and looked around. "Airplane?"

"There are no doors," Theo mentioned, tilting his head to where he felt a door should be. Liam shrugged.

"That's...unfortunate," Liam shrugged and said, but went back to looking around at the chairs. "I feel like I've heard of this place before."

"The universal waiting room?" Theo snorted, but something deep settled in his chest and his expression sobered. "...oh."

There was silence between them, and both could tell there was something the other didn't want to say. "Why is there blood on your jacket?" Theo asked quietly.

"I...don't remember."

Theo glanced down at his own jeans and rubbed his thumb over the dried blood there. "Me neither."

Something hung in the air between them, and Theo could hear Liam's heartbeat increase in pace by the tiniest percentage. Not panicked, but not the same smooth sailing sound as it's been for the past few minutes. "Theo?" He asked softly. "Do you think we might be-"

"Dead?"

Liam nods.

The calmness breaks.

"Yeah," Liam breathed, picking at his fingernails. "Dead."

There are a million things that Theo could say in that moment, but looking at Liam's tearful expression as he fights to hold onto his smile, all he can think of is "Well, this blows." It's enough to get Liam's smile back on his face with light laughter, and he brushed his finger under his nose and sniffed. "This isn't how I thought this would be at all."

"Purgatory," Liam said, and Theo tilted his head to the side questioningly. "It's kind of like the waiting room between heaven and hell, I guess." 

"Ah." Theo nodded. "I was wondering why it wasn't all fire and brimstone."

Liam didn't look like he should be here, in Theo's opinion. He seemed like the type of guy to be sent straight up if there even was a place called heaven, not stuck in an exitless room with someone like himself. A sign appeared on the wall a few seconds after Theo and Liam first uttered the word 'dead,' one that read 'Welcome to the rest of eternity,' but they both silently decided not to look at it. Still, Liam's eyes fell on it while he was trying to talk to Theo and they teared up again.

"My parents are probably pissed," Liam muttered, looking up at the ceiling so the tears won't fall. "They both told me to be careful all the time, _all_ the time." 

Theo gave a sympathetic half-smile, shrugging his shoulders. "I somehow don't think anyone would care that much," He admitted. "I bet no one's noticed yet, if I died alone."

Liam wanted to tell him that that wasn't true, but he didn't actually know the man in front of him. Still, he reached out and placed a hand on the slightly taller one's shoulder, rubbing it slightly and returning his expression of sympathy. 

It dawned on him after he accidentally looked at the sign again that he didn't know exactly where he was going.

"I might go to Hell," He said abruptly, taking his hand off of Theo's shoulder and examining it in front of his eyes like it had personally hurt him. "Shit."

"Why would you be going to Hell? Speaking from experience, you need to have done something pretty bad to get in that much trouble," Theo joked as much as he could on the matter, looking at Liam's nervous expression. Two yellow eyes glow at him, and Liam can barely bring himself to be surprised when Theo doesn't flinch. The chimera must have missed Liam's scent. He's been a little distracted, of course. "Okay, that might do it."

Liam laughed wryly and nodded. "I didn't kill anyone while I was alive...but I probably screwed something up to get me here."

"Well, you haven't been instantly sent to Hell." If Theo had a cigarette, this seemed like the time to take a drag. "That's gotta mean something." Theo took the liberty of relaxing while he still could and leaned back in his chair, two of the legs coming off the floor. "I'm not worried," He said, but his heartbeat told him otherwise.

"You're not worried you could go to Hell?" Liam asked in disbelief, eyebrows furrowing. 

"Been there, done that," Theo said, wishing it was really just as easy and breezy as his voice made it sound. 

"What-?"

Theo flashed his eyes at the beta werewolf and smirked slightly as the realization set in. "Oh," Liam said quietly. "Well, yellow, right?"

There was a type of smile in Liam's sad eyes that made him not want to explain what his color should be, so he let Liam roll with it. Something told him he wouldn't be around this truly innocent boy long enough for it to really matter. "Right," He sighed, putting his chair back on the ground.

\--

Time in purgatory was merely a concept like it was on all other planes of existence, but now, neither of them knew whether it had been hours or minutes since they had first appeared there. They had moved out of their seats and into different ones, walking around and even going as far as tapping on the walls out of interest, but they always seemed to materialize back in their original spots when they were done. Liam's hand ended up on Theo's armrest next to his, and when Theo took his hand, their at-peace minds barely registered it. All Theo could wonder was how someone could make something as terrifying as death feel like a vacation.

\--

"Were you scared of dying?" In a most undignified way for where they were, Theo had his legs on the chair and his back and head on the floor, looking up at Liam. He wondered if it would get him sent to Hell any faster if whoever decided their fates got fed up with him being impolite, but he didn't care. The carpet was comfortable enough. "When you were alive, were you scared?"

Liam shrugged his shoulders, looking up at the ceiling. More signs had since appeared and their hands were no longer clasped together, but Liam's palm stayed pressed flat onto Theo's ankle that had replaced Theo's own hand. "I never really thought about death. I bet I was scared when I died," He said, glancing down at his bloodstained shirt. Oddly enough, the texture of blood wasn't present; they both looked as though their clothes had come designed that way. "Wonder if I'll be wearing this when I go to Hell."

Theo didn't mention Liam's definitiveness when it came to his fate, but he shook his head. "When I was in Hell, it put me in a grey T-shirt."

"So...does Hell have a dress code, or...?"

Theo couldn't help but laugh. "I don't want to scare you, so I'll spare you the details. I don't think you're going to Hell, anyway. You're not...you're not like me."

Liam wondered what that meant, but he didn't ask. Soon enough, they were back in their original positions, and the moment to mention it was lost.

\--

"Theo?"

"Yeah?"

Liam took a deep breath of the strange-feeling air. "Tell me about hell. What it was like, and all."

Theo rested his chin against the back of his forearms, on the floor again. "I really don't think you want to know."

Liam shook his head and looked at him expectantly. "I just want to know what I should be preparing for in case I end up going."

The chimera wished he couldn't explain, wished that he didn't remember so that he wouldn't have to force that kind of stress on the other man, but he nodded once in acceptance and tried to find somewhere to start. "I think it's different for everybody," He began, tapping his fingers on the floor and glancing up at Liam, who was still staring, enraptured. "It's what'll hurt you the most. The worst part of your existence on Earth."

Something in Theo's chest tightened when Liam shuddered. He must have known exactly what Hell would be for him, but the chimera was still holding out hope that Liam would never have his fears recognized. There was something about him that made him long to protect. "I guess I'm in for a tough ride, then."

Theo nodded. "No matter what, there's no escape. Sometimes I wonder how I even got out. If it weren't for one of my old pack members...I'd still be in what felt like my thousandth year."

He had looked away from Liam, but when he saw him again, the beta looked like he'd just watched someone kill his loved one. Theo's breath caught in his throat. "I'm sorry," He whispered, moving to kneel and reaching out for Liam's hand again. "I didn't mean to scare you. It'll be..." Theo hesitated, but squoze his hand tighter as the words died in the air.

"It's okay," Liam breathed shakily. "I asked."

Theo smiled softly, wishing he could make it better for him. "Like I said before," He started, rubbing his thumb over Liam's knuckles. "I don't think you'll be going."

"How can you even be sure?"

And for that, Theo didn't have much of an answer. "I don't know," He said quietly, "but I have a good feeling."

"Well...I have a good feeling for you too."

Theo's heart skipped and he wondered if Liam could hear it here, since he certainly alerted himself. "That's a bold statement," he laughed, and Liam chuckled back, a small grin passing over his pretty face that set Theo at ease. He came up next to Liam on the chair and let their hands fall onto his chest, holding them close to his heart. The little bit of intimacy they got in these last moments would hopefully last them the eternities ahead of them.

Liam's head fell onto Theo's shoulder, and no matter how oddly he would have reacted while he was alive, Theo's fell right on top of his as Liam cuddled beside him through the armrest. Theo's stolen heart pounded in his chest. "Can I tell you something?" Liam whispered, and the steadily-increasing thumping of his heart kept going as Theo nodded. "As weird as it is...I feel like you're the only one I'd want to spend my time in purgatory with."

With that, Theo's chest ached, because he agreed. Of course once he found someone who made him feel like he was floating, someone who seemed to understand him and someone who he wanted to be close to, they were already dead. "I know," Theo said, barely a ghost of the words, and he felt his eyes well up. "Me too."

\--

It was impossible to sleep in purgatory, but just when they had started trying, Liam's head still resting peacefully on Theo's shoulder, a third voice interrupted.

"You've been very patient."

Theo startled and sat up straight, now suddenly alert after the hours of borderline high he felt earlier. There was a man standing a few feet in front of them with a clipboard, wearing all white and black hair slicked back. "What the f-"

"Don't curse in front of him," Liam whispered frantically, smacking him lightly on the arm. Theo's eyes stayed widened and fixed on the man, nodding at Liam. "H-hello."

"Hello, I'm Adam," He said almost happily in nature. "Not the Adam of course, just an Adam, but I'm here to assist you in getting on your merry way to your next destination. Consider me your flight attendant." His comment made Liam briefly think of Mason, but his head was so scrambled he couldn't stay on one thought for long. It was a big change from the long while of tranquility he had. Now things were really settling in. "Today we'll be looking at a slideshow of each of your lives to determine where you'll be going next!"

Theo didn't understand how Adam could be so upbeat about this, but remembered that he must have seen millions of poor souls pass through into the unwanted place. He could just see it now: He lets go of Liam's hand, and one of them ascends while the other never makes it. It made him want to shudder, but he held it back; Liam would certainly feel it if he couldn't already notice his pulse going haywire through the veins in his hand. "We'll start with you first," Adam said, looking at Theo. "There's more to unpack with you."

As something like a hologram appeared in front of them, a new feeling of dread came to Theo. If they were looking at his past, there was absolutely no way Liam would look at him the same way, and oddly enough, that felt like the most important part of it all. Even if he were being sent to Hell, not seeing Liam again would be a kick in the lungs. "Theodore Raeken, you were born January 13th, 1998 to Marie Adams and Jonathan Raeken, at five pounds, eleven ounces, two weeks early. Capricorn, an Earth sign. Your childhood was uneventful, your most notable relationships being with those such as Lori Rohr and Brett Talbot."

Theo swallowed through a now painfully dry throat as he saw his possibly-dead friends appear in their childhood forms, a skinny, nine-year-old version of himself next to them. They played with a tennis ball with plastic eyes glued onto it, bouncing it around until one of them fell off, all three falling into a pile of laughter. The vision flickered. "You then 'moved away' shortly after that last moment of normality."

He winced and though there were no chemosignals in purgatory, Liam could tell that Theo's would have been pure anxiety and remorse by the way he squirmed in his seat. There was now a river and a bridge, a young girl begging for his help as she froze. "You watched your sister freeze to death after you pushed her into the creek on the outskirts of Beacon Hills. Tara died at exactly ten thirty-seven and forty-three seconds on May 4th, 2007." Liam stared at the side of Theo's face instead of the hologram, but the chimera couldn't meet his eyes. Any second now, Liam's hand would slip from his, he just knew it. 

The two watched as Adam replayed every life lost, a million and one questions running through Liam's head while nothing but unadulterated sadness filled Theo. Trying to kill the members of Satomi's pack, which he'd wormed his way into when he was seventeen, getting far too close to killing Satomi herself and taking his childhood best friends down with her. He watched as he was dragged into the ground, and Liam now knew what his personal Hell looked like. 

Liam gripped his hand like it was the rope keeping him from falling to his death down a cliff while tears threatened to escape Theo's eyes. "Liam..."

"Don't say anything," Liam instructed softly, shaking his head. "This isn't you, it's not."

"Right," Adam said, pointing to a new vision. "Because Theo, after you rose from Hell, thanks to your participation and someone feeling particularly gracious to you that day, you started to redeem yourself. You protected the pack you once tried to destroy without trying to make your way into it, you sacrificed yourself numerous times over, and look far too many bullets for it to be safe."

Adam looked between the two and gave a tiny smile, but didn't look happy either way. "Which was exactly how you died, saving Brett and Lori, who you tried to kill before. You were twenty-one years and one hundred eighty days old at your demise. Brett and Lori died shortly afterwards. You all died on 

Liam bit his tongue as he watched Theo be shot in the abdomen, stopping in his tracks after a few uncoordinated steps before looking down at his wound. He pressed his hand to the two bullet holes in his stomach, above and slightly over from his right hip, examining the thick, dark blood. He fell to his knees, and by the time Brett and Lori saw him, he was gone. Beautiful green eyes were glassy and the emotion Liam got the privilege of seeing all day had been voided.

The mirage faded away and wasn't replaced with anything else, much to Theo's relief. There were still no answers, but at least the worst was over, and Liam hadn't run away. Instead, the beta looked at him with unbridled emotion, speechless. That was okay; he wasn't sure if he could handle him saying anything.

Adam brought up Liam's next, and the beta held his breath while Theo watched with respectful interest. "Liam Dunbar, you were born to Jenna Geyer and Matthew Dunbar, both then still Dunbar, on October 31st, 2000. You are a Scorpio, a water sign, and your mom always joked that you were their Halloween baby." Theo couldn't help but smile at the picture of the happy family, Liam with a little pumpkin baby hat on his head as a newborn. His mother was smiling and his father mirrored it, but Liam obviously didn't feel the same way, tensing next to him. "Your troubles started at a very young age, comparable to Theo's, when your father began drinking after seven years of sobriety when you were six. You can say that he wasn't exactly a nice drunk."

Liam clenched his teeth and Theo once again tightened his hold on him, because he seemed to need it now more than ever. "He hit you the first time when you were nine, but he had been abusing your mother for years before then. It was when he sent you to the hospital for the first time on December 21st, 2010, that your mother worked up the courage to leave him." Before the image faded, the pair watched with bated breath as a fist struck a young boy's face over and over again in a loop until Theo was about to shout for him to change it, even if he wasn't sure if Adam controlled it. "You grew up and were diagnosed with Intermittent Explosive Disorder when you were twelve, and when your mother remarried to David Geyer shortly afterwards, he started to teach you to play lacrosse and reign in some of that anger. One of your fondest memories."

After that, things shifted to a taller boy in a high school corridor. "You were bitten when you were in freshman year, changing you into something inhuman and dangerous. You struggled with control, and even though you tried, you hurt your friends and almost your family. You never killed any innocents on purpose, but blood was spilled at your hand."

It was Liam's turn to swallow, like all of the air had been sucked out of him. "You tried your very hardest, but you were taken down by another werewolf, an alpha from a different pack, but you killed three unwitting onlookers before you died. Two women and a man, dead. The others fled."

That was the moment Liam really did start to cry, reaching up with his free hand to quickly brush away a tear, but not before Theo noticed. He really hadn't meant to kill anyone, and it was clearly tearing him apart then.

"Your best friend Mason found you at the scene, and he managed to make it out alive with your body. You were able to say your goodbyes to your pack and family before you finally took your last breath fifteen minutes after the attack. You were eighteen years and two hundred seventy-two days old."

Theo wanted to throw up as he watched Liam die in his mother's arms, the boy he called his best friend kneeling down next to him and pressing a kiss to his forehead before breaking down in sobs with everyone else. Before he knew what he was doing, Theo was reaching out with his other arm and pulling the other dead boy in as close as the chairs allowed so Liam's head was resting on his chest, wrapping him in a much needed hug. Adam stood by and watched as Theo's body shook against Liam's.

"You both died on the same night, and at the same time, July 30, 3019, nine fifty-three PM, explaining on one count why you're here together. After death, unless being sent straight to heaven or hell, soulmates remain in purgatory until their fates are decided." 

Theo clenched his hands in the back of Liam's jacket and let himself cry at that word.

The world was cruel. The ones who were worth the most to him were dead, and he knew soon enough that he would never see the three of them again. This was the last time he would ever hold the one he had been meant to be with in his arms, the last time he'd hear his voice. If there were more pictures in front of them, Theo would never know. His eyes were shut and he was trying to remember every single thing about Liam he could before he was cast away. "I'm so sorry," He sobbed, forgetting that Adam was there in the first place. He was sorry he never met Liam before, or spent any time with him that wasn't when they were nothing but souls that had left their hosts behind. "I'm-I'm-"

"Shhh," Liam soothed, but Theo could hear through the thickness of his voice that Liam was just as destroyed as he was. "Don't. It's okay, it's okay. Come on, we're gonna get through this. We'll go together, okay? They won't separate us."

But Theo knew that _they,_ whatever it was, would. If there was something worse than having his heart torn out by his sister, this was it, because his heart was now attached to someone else's with an invisible thread. If that thread was broken, he would be too. It was the perfect punishment for someone who had never fallen in love.

Adam was wordless as the room around them disappeared, and Theo's head remained firmly nuzzled into the space between Liam's neck and shoulders, where he felt more than anywhere else that he should be. "Theo, baby," Liam whispered, but his voice couldn't remain quite so soft as a loud, windy noise picked up. "It'll be okay. It's always going to be okay. You deserve to go somewhere good, we're going somewhere good-"

His words fell upon two deaf ears as everything ceased to exist all at once. Liam held onto nothing and Theo's head fell limply to his own chest, and the darkness around them engulfed every thought they once knew. 

They couldn't breathe.

It was over.

But just as fast as it had covered everything, the dark sheet was gone, and Theo and Liam were placed right back together. Theo gasped for breath and wrapped his arms around Liam as tightly as he could. "You're still here," Theo mumbled, barely audible as it was muffled in Liam's jacket. 

"I am," Liam agreed breathlessly. "Which...w-which means-"

"You two have been very patient."

This time, instead of the slightly ominous enthusiasm Adam had shown before, when Liam and Theo looked up, they found a warm smile. "Theo Raeken, Liam Dunbar. I think you'll find that Heaven suits you well, don't you?" Adam held out his arm, and on shaky legs, the two followed his path.

In the oasis they were in, cobblestone streets lined with beautiful houses and kind faces, Theo and Liam could only look at each other. When they arrived at a large building that looked like a mayor's office, they stopped in front of the steps.

"Hi," Theo said for lack of better things, and Liam smiled, the tears from before no longer tracking his face but making his eyes look shiny.

"Hi."

From there, no matter where life, or, well, the opposite took them, the two soulmates knew that they'd never forget that moment. Their pasts were ever-present, but their futures overwhelmed the disbelief of being there.

And when Liam kissed Theo for the very first time out in Heaven's main square, no one present did anything but smile, knowing that what they were witnessing was the most precious of things; two people meant for each other finally meeting in the middle and forming the bond they were meant to have. To Theo and Liam, the most awe-consuming thing about it wasn't the infinite amount of years they now had together, or who they would come to meet in their new places, but the feeling of their lips pressed together and how they felt when their eyes met.

One of Theo's worst fears after Hell had been death, but now, as he walked hand-in-hand down to a large fountain where many other couples and friends sat, he realized that it had all been worth it. For Liam, for this new chapter of his existence, or lack thereof, he would be shot a million times over.

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot different than my other things, and it's not beta'd, so this might be Very Bad. Comments would be appreciated, since I'm a little uncertain about it...and I could maaaybe be talked into doing a second part if you ask really nicely ;)
> 
> This also states that Liam and Theo will die exactly eighteen days after this was published, so if you're reading on July 30th or afterwards, Theo and Liam are well on their way to what they deserve.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
